Quite apart from being sin, that last kind of pride kills ministries. Unless the leader (pastor) has a charismatic personality, like Joel Osteen, or Joyce Meyer, he is unlikely to be able to sustain a ministry by the force of his personality.
There are in the neighborhood of 46,000 pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention. The majority of them, by far, do not have the kind of personality that the charismatic mega-church pastors have. Most operate in churches with fewer than 300 members. Some have churches in that number in the 500-1,000 range. Still fewer have more than 1,000 members and maybe 100 or so pastor mega-churches.
There are three things the “non-mega-churches” are charged with doing: worshiping God, spreading the gospel and ministering to/equipping the saints. By the way, mega churches are charged with the same responsibilities.
In an effort to be current and “relevant,” many pastors of smaller churches are tempted to try different techniques to attract people. Interestingly, many pastors have adopted very worldly methods to “reach” people. The trouble with that is that if any technique attracts people better than the gospel, the people it attracts are likely to be shallow in their thinking and stunted in their spiritual growth. The Holy Spirit convicts people of sin and leads them to a relationship with God through Christ. If He has not done that, no style of ministry will succeed.
Jesus said that if we lift Him up, He will draw people to Him. He doesn't need our help. In fact, our help will really be no help at all. It will be a hindrance to reaching people with the gospel. What pastors really need to do is to be about the business God has put them in: praying, equipping the saints, building (growing) the saints spiritually in Christ and preaching the gospel message.
Too many pastors think they have to “reinvent the wheel” to perform effective ministry today. While some methodology must change, there are certain methods that must be used if a church is to be anything close to what God wants for them.
To achieve spiritual growth among his people, a pastor needs to get them involved in the study of God’s Word. They cannot grow without it. A half-hour or forty-five minute sermon once a week just is not enough to grow people spiritually. That is an invitation to them to remain spiritually milk-fed.
He must also disciple, or train, his people to do the works of service to which God and His Word have called them.
The pastor must send them out to evangelize the lost in the local community, the state, in the nation and around the world. In other words he must lead them to be evangelists and missionaries.
The non mega-church pastor must provide his congregation with solid worship that includes reverence for God and the celebration of the resurrection of Christ.
Finally, he must preach the gospel to the saved and the unsaved. The unsaved must be brought to an awareness of their sin, must repent of that sin and then must trust in and only in the finished work of Christ at the cross of Calvary for salvation. The saved will respond to the gospel message with joy and thanksgiving.
All of this is much more than one man can handle and much of it is not the job of the pastor anyway. Bible study, training, and missions belong in the hands of trained staff or laymen who feel called of God to lead in these areas.
A little known secret is that the more people a church has involved in these ministries, the more steadily the church will grow and the more people it will reach for Christ and service to Him.
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